


When It's Time

by formytroubledmind



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, I'll add more as I go along, M/M, Memory Loss, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:30:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1564751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formytroubledmind/pseuds/formytroubledmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time is like a handful of sand- the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.</p><p>A canon-divergent strand where Jean and Marco search for each other across timelines, continents and universes. And in each lifetime, they can't find each other without someone losing something along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the first time (canon part i)

**Author's Note:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://heytherewhatsyourname.tumblr.com/), and i may post updates as well as other snk related stuff there.

The first time Jean meets Marco is on the day of their enlisting.

They are twelve.

* * *

My hands don’t keep still as I waited in line. They made themselves into fists, clenching and unclenching; migrated to my face, where the fingers pressed against the bridge of my nose. I exhaled slowly and shifted my stance, leaning on one foot, then switching to the other. My teeth chewed hard on my bottom lip.

Making the decision to become a soldier had seemed so simple back at home.

But right now I was starting to get second thoughts.

What if I don’t get into the top ten?

Then I’m definitely screwed.

I let out an audible sigh, running my hands through my hair. My fingers lingered on the buzzed portion of my undercut, a gesture developed out of equal parts anxiety and frustration. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest.

I shut my eyes. 

“Another wimp; you either man up or go home, kid.”

_Shit._

It’s my turn.

The clerk glares at me, fingers drumming on the table as he taps his pen irritably on the sheet of paper. I flushed.

“Haven’t got all day. Name?”

I took a deep breath. I hope I’m not making a choice I'll regret.

“Kirschstein. Jean Kirschstein.”  

\--

The barrack I’d been assigned to had eight bunks, all of which were empty. _Good,_ I thought, and chose a bunk at random, dumping my bag on one of the lower ones. 

I was in the midst of unpacking, sitting in a circle of clothes and thumbing through my sketchbook, when the door creaked open.

I snapped the book shut and whipped around.

The first thing I noticed about the boy in the doorway was his freckles. His head was tilted up, looking about the room, and I could see them dotting his cheeks, trailing down his jawline before disappearing behind the neck of his shirt.

I wondered briefly about how many he had, and if I could ever have the chance to count them. Probably not, because that would be  _weird._

“Hey,” he said when he saw me. “I guess we’re, uh, roommates.”

I gave a non-committal shrug. I wasn’t there to make friends; maybe when I got into the military police I’d consider the option. I couldn’t let anything distract me.  

“I suppose so.”

He raised an eyebrow and gave me something like a wry smile—that look, I had learnt, meant that he didn’t know what to do. Usually because I was being an asshole.

I turned my attention back to my things and shrugged, standing up and gathering my stuff.

“I’m Marco, by the way.”

He’d made his way over, and had extended a hand—an oddly formal gesture. He was taller than me, even then, and I noticed that the back of his hand was too covered with freckles.

I stored this useless bit of information somewhere inside my mind, wiped my sweaty hands on my slacks, and shook it. His hands were soft, and I held on for a second too long, feeling the warmth of his palm under my fingertips.

“Jean.” My voice sounded too loud in the otherwise empty room. 

He didn’t seem to mind. “So, _Jean,_ you wanna get something to eat?" 

I couldn’t help myself. I snorted.

Marco blushed. “What?”

“Can’t believe you actually got my name right. No one gets it right on the first try. Are you a god or something?”

“Well, my name actually means ‘messenger from the god of war’, so there’s that.”

“Oh. Um.” I’d only made things awkward again. _Way to go,_ I scolded myself, searching for something that would carry the conversation into more general and less dangerous territory.

“And, uh, sure. I’m starving.”

We made our way to the mess hall after that. I don’t remember exactly what we ate, or how exactly the conversation went, only that he was mostly the one talking, and that we’d sat together.

I found out that he hated his freckles, that he’d rubbed at them on more than one occasion hoping they’d go away. I found out that his birthday was June sixteenth, and that he’d joined because he wanted to serve the King.

And over the course of the meal, I’d found out more about Marco Bodt that I’d let slip about myself.

We returned to our barrack to find it filled. The top bunk of my bed had been taken by a skinny brunet, who was bouncing around excitedly, and what I assumed to be his clothes were in uneven piles and spilled out over the floor. My corner of the room was basically a mess.

I looked over at the shaking frame and frowned.

“What’s wrong with you? You a fish or something?”

The boy paused to glare at me. He was about to scramble down the ladder, but his blond friend, who had taken the bed beside Marco’s, pulled him aside.

“No,” he said, after some furtive whispering. “I’m Eren Jaeger.”

Marco laughed. I decided not to dignify this with a response.

“I’m Marco,” he introduced, and gestured to me. “And that’s Jean.”

I gave a gruff “hey” in response. My hand reached, almost subconsciously, around the back of my head to rest in my hair, fingers in my undercut.

I hung around for a while, watching as Marco joked around with everyone. He seemed to be getting along so well with the others. He’d gesture to me when people asked, but otherwise no one really paid attention to me at all. I guess I deserved it; radiating semi-hostile aura as I sat on the edge of my bed and pretended to arrange the things in my trunk.

By the time evening rolled around I’d learned the names of most my roommates, mostly from eavesdropping on Marco’s conversations. There were six other people in our barrack: Reiner, a blond brick of a person, Berthold, who was tall and quiet, Connie, a short bald kid, Thomas, some gabby kid who was full of self-righteous pomp, Eren, the brat, and Armin, his blond friend.

I was half expecting Marco to join them for dinner and leave me behind, seeing as they’d spent most of the afternoon chatting, but just as he stepped out of the door, he called my name and jerked his head in the direction of the group.

“Jean? You coming or not?"

I swallowed, trying to hide my surprise. “Yeah.”

\--

The first day wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.

It was somewhere around midnight, after a long debrief by Shadis, when we’d returned to the barracks. Marco fell asleep almost instantaneously after showers; he’d just climbed into bed while I was shucking off my shoes, and when I’d settled in and looked over—

—he was asleep, chest rising and falling with each breath, hair flopped into his eyes, and with something like a small smile across his face. 

I looked over at him and gave a smile of my own. Despite everything, I liked the way my name lilted on his tongue, found his freckles interesting, and besides, we were aiming to be in the same branch.

Perhaps having one friend wasn't so bad after all.

 


	2. the first time (canon part ii)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they are struck down one by one. and just like that, the time allotted to their existence is up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i still have a [tumblr](http://heytherewhatsyourname.tumblr.com/).

I was wrong about Marco being a friend. He was more than that. 

Falling in love with Marco Bodt was like plunging headfirst into a pool of water. Fast, dangerous, and all in one swift motion.

You never really mean to in the first place.

And after two weeks, I was drowning.

I blushed at the slightest of touches, grinned like a madman when he complimented me, not-so-subtly took every the opportunity to spend more time just sitting and talking.

Armin was probably one of the first to pick it up, because one evening, over dinner, he just raised a knowing blond eyebrow and mouthed something at me.

I didn’t believe him. But I started noticing all the small things in the way Marco acted, how he’d always swing one arm around my neck when we were walking, no matter if we were out all day trekking or even just walking back to the barracks, how he’d squish with me when we were in the mess hall even though there were other seats around, how despite his uncanny ability to fall asleep almost instantly he’d never failed to say goodnight. And how he’d always said he’d had faith in me.

Maybe Armin was right. Maybe he did like me back.

I waited, gathering evidence in the form of soft touches that lingered a second too long, and wide smiles that seemed to be directly only at me and whispered encouragement that came from the heart. I waited until I was fairly convinced, but I had to make sure. So I asked, one day, in the most direct and callous way possible, in the only way I knew how. I made sure to wait till it was just us in the barrack, and I looked him into the eye and said,

“Do you have a thing for me, Marco Bodt?”

He’d looked stunned at first.

Then, just as I began to regret it, he gave a slight nod. 

I think my jaw dropped, half out of surprise and the other out of _I knew it!_ but then again I’m not particularly sure, because right after Marco crushed us together and I had my first kiss.

It wasn’t particularly romantic or anything. I remember thinking _ohshitohshitohshitohshit_ as his hot breath ghosted across my red cheeks.

When we pulled apart, breathing heavily, I’d whispered, “I think I may have a thing for you too.”

And I truly did. When Shadis talked about weak spots, I’d wonder about Marco’s; when napes were mentioned I thought about the expanse of soft skin along his; and when it came to the lesson where the instructor detailed how deep to cut and the right angles of the blades, my mind wandered to his cheek bones, his strong jaw.

You’d think these all things made me distracted, made me weak, but that wasn’t true.

In fact, it kept me going.

Every time I wanted to give up in the middle of running laps I’d think about how Marco and I were going to end up in the interior together. Every second shaved off a course would mean I could spend longer kissing the freckles on the expanse of his back. When I was lagging behind on target scores I reminded myself that if we made it to the top ten we would have so many years together. We would have more than the measly minutes stolen in between trainings and when our friends weren’t looking. 

We would have all the time in the world.

And we were set on that path—I graduated seventh and he eighth in our class, and our places were more or less confirmed in Sina, but I didn’t ever expect Trost.

No one did.

_\--_

You could say that the 104th had a baptism of fire, because that half of us ended up as charred bones on a funeral pyre, and the other half all refined in the sense that we all started to realize the grim reality of being a soldier. It wasn’t glamorous or brave or particularly noble, because we were frankly all covered in blood, scared shitless and most of us would have deserted if given the chance.

Over eight hundred were injured, and about five hundred died in Trost. Marco was one of them. He didn’t even make it to the night of the disbanding.

We were together for three years.

I didn’t even see him go, the first time. And it hurt like shit, more than the time I’d scraped my entire back falling down a tree, more than the time I got concussed because of training. It was an ache that resided in the back of my consciousness for weeks. The tiniest reminder of him—the sight of a freckle on Ymir’s cheek, the scent of his shirts, _anything—_ brought it to the forefront of my mind, and I was overwhelmed. I wanted to curl up and just, I don’t know, cry for days. Or retch. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

And I did blame myself. Maybe if I’d been a little more observant I would have noticed when he was gone. Maybe if I didn’t mess up and spoil my gear he wouldn’t have needed to save me, maybe then _I_ would have saved _him_. Maybe if I worked harder I could have been faster, better, and maybe then he wouldn’t be gone.

I hated myself for being so inattentive, so stupid, so utterly _useless._ I remember one conversation with Armin where he’d sat on the edge of my bunk and told me that I was being to hard on myself, that it wasn’t my fault, so please don’t hate yourself for this, Jean.

I asked him, what is there to love when the best part of you is gone?

After a long silence, he finally spoke.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly.

He’d left after that, carefully closing the door behind him while I stared at the empty bed beside mine until my vision blurred.

But eventually tears run dry while your grief still rubs raw inside you, and by that time you’ll realize there are things that you can’t cry out.

It still took me weeks to clear my head and figure out that Marco probably wouldn’t have wanted his. Heck, he’d feel bad for dying.

His death had seemed so senseless—in the whole scheme of things, he was just another casualty of war, a crossed-out name.

So I decided I would give him meaning. I would make him _matter._

I didn’t want those charred bones I saw to be disappointed in me.

 

When Eren expressed surprise that I’d joined the Scouting Legion, I told him,“I’m not afraid to die; I just need to know what I’m fighting for.”

The look of downright shock—and maybe the beginnings of respect—on his face was more satisfying than any insult I could have thrown at him.

Most of us, the group I hung around with, were in the scouting legion; only Annie had joined the military police. Back then our mission was simple. Patch up Maria. Get to the basement, and then we’d see where to go from there. Try not to get killed, kill some titans along the way.

But everything started going wrong. All the things we’d banked on lost their ground. I began to realize that Trost was only the beginning.

We had traitors amongst us, sentient titans, and we didn’t even know who the bad guys were anymore. We tried to rebel, place the rightful people as king and turn everything around. We were doing all we could for humanity.

And since joining the military, I always thought I’d kill titans, but I was wrong.

And since joining the legion, I always thought I’d die by titan, but I was wrong.

I won’t go into details, but the coup failed. Of the leaders, Erwin was the first to go. Then it was us, the remnants of the hundred and fourth: Mikasa, Armin, Sasha, Connie and me. We were bruised, beaten and bloody, all lined up and shackled and in possession of front-row seats to our own public execution.

They didn’t want to kill Eren, not yet. He was watching us and crying, trying desperately to bite at any part of himself. If he could make himself bleed we’d all be saved. But he was drugged up and heavily guarded and one wrong move could make it all worse.

He looked me in the eye as I was forced onto the block. I saw him mouth at me before I shut my eyes.

_I’m sorry, Jean._

 

I remember the pain. I remember dying.

I remember my last words.

I said, I’m going home.

_See you soon, Marco._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure about the pacing for more-than-one-shots, so comments are appreciated. :)


End file.
